


Payback

by Dreadbeasts



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, callum gets swole from flying, dorks who are friends, rad bromance, rayla and soren are total bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21817984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreadbeasts/pseuds/Dreadbeasts
Summary: Three years after the return of the Dragon Prince, Rayla and Soren wait for Callum to return from mage training.
Relationships: Callum & Soren (The Dragon Prince), Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Rayla & Soren (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 239





	Payback

**Author's Note:**

> Based on all the meta and hcs going around about Soren and Rayla having a rad bromance, Callum gaining a ton of upper-body strength from flying everywhere and general Rayllum fluffiness. 
> 
> So have a fic about Callum returning to the Storm Spire after a year of mage training, and how Rayla and Soren respectively welcome him back. Takes place about 3 years after Season 3, so Callum is just shy of 18, Rayla’s just shy of 19, and Soren is 22.

From the peak of the Storm Spire, Rayla scanned the horizon, tensely waiting for something.

“Whatcha looking for?” said a voice behind her, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin. In a flash, she drew her swords and pointed them at the throat of her assailant. 

“Whoa, whoa, it’s just me!!” said Soren, holding his hands up defensively and backing away.

Rayla relaxed. “Don’t sneak up on me, Soren, I’m not in the mood.”

“Why? Antsy because your _boyyyyyyyyfriend_ is coming back today?” Soren leaned back with a sly grin.

Soren’s presence on the Storm Spire had initially made the rest of the Dragonguard nervous, but he was there on a diplomatic endeavor: a human Crownguard serving with the Dragonguard. His counterpart, a Sunfire elf named Yavuz, was stationed in Katolis. And after some time, the elves had come to realize that, while not the sharpest sword in the armory, Soren was really good at guarding things, and was pretty determined to prove he was nothing like his father. Plus, even Rayla couldn’t deny that he had his good points, and a strange friendship had blossomed between the two. 

Said friendship mostly consisted of trying to out-do each other with increasingly dangerous or ill-considered feats of bravery and strength, but it was friendship nonetheless.Still, just because they were bros now, that didn’t mean Soren got to tease her about Callum.

“Shut it,” she said with a glower, and returned to scanning the horizon. “He’s been gone a long time, I’m allowed to be nervous.”

“It’s been what, a year?” said Soren, sitting down beside her with a clank as he pulled an apple out of some hidden compartment in his armor.

“A year, yeah.” Rayla looked down. She had tried not to miss Callum too much, and hoped that wherever he was - Cloudvale, the Shrieking Shore, Mt. Adra - he pined for her as much as she had pined for him this long year. She’d received letters very regularly, with accounts of his adventures and drawings of what he’d seen, and she sent letters back with updates on Zym, life at the Storm Spire, her own training. But letters and drawings weren’t the same as seeing him; his wide smile, the soft look in those green eyes, the shiver that went down to her toes when he said her name. 

Soren bit into the fruit, and continued to speak with his mouth full. “Didn’t know mage training was so intense. Think he learned anything cool?”

“Probably. In his last letter, he said that he and Ibis had been chasing storms, trying to find a big one so he could make a primal stone.”

“Y’know, if you’d have told me three years ago that I’d be hanging out with the Dragon Queen and a bunch of elves, waiting for the step-prince to come flying in because he’s a sky mage and can turn his arms into wings? I’d have thought you were crazy.” Soren paused, thinking. “Actually I probably would have tried to kill you, since you’d have been a Moonshadow Elf in the castle, and since my job was to keep elves OUT of the castle--”

“I get what you mean,” said Rayla, cutting him off. And then, a speck in the distance - no, two specks. She tensed, watching the shapes draw in closer, hopeful but not certain.

“Whoa. Either those are really big birds, or that’s them,” said Soren, standing. 

Rayla did not consider herself to be particularly vain or fussy. She had a job to do, which was guarding the spire from threats. Her appearance was low on her priority list (aside from making sure her clan markings weren’t faded and she looked presentable). But now that Callum was approaching, she felt her pulse quickening and suddenly whether or not she looked cute mattered a whole heck of a lot. She fussed with her hair, and tugged at the edges of her uniform.

“Calm down, you look fine,” said Soren, noticing her jitters. He knew he wasn’t the most tactful or observant man out there, but he did have a little sister, and he wasn’t THAT dim. He ignored the pang of sadness at the thought of Claudia, and instead focused on Rayla’s worry. So what if she hadn’t seen Callum in a year? The guy was obnoxiously earnest and a big softie, she had nothing to worry about. And if Callum was a jerk, he’d throw him off the Storm Spire. Assuming Rayla didn’t first.

The shapes drew in closer, and it became apparent that it was two winged humanoids - Ibis and Callum. Rayla waved, excited but restrained, and one of the figures wheeled away from the other, diving lower down, heading for the landing outside the Queen’s chambers. 

Soren smirked. “I’m gonna go say hi to Ibis and let the Dragon Queen know they’re back,” he said, heading towards the stairs. “Don’t smooch him too hard!” He nimbly jogged away before Rayla could sock him. She scowled at Soren’s retreating form, but the frown vanished quickly as she looked up. 

Callum was drawing closer now, wide brown wings fanning out and tilting upwards as he brought himself in for a landing. His feet had barely touched the stone of the Spire’s pinnacle before Rayla rushed at him, almost tackling him with her embrace.

The mage prince laughed, and it may have been slightly deeper but it was still Callum’s laugh and it had been so long since she’d heard it. Soft feathers wrapped around her (to her delight, he had remembered that she loved his wing hugs), and she snuggled into his chest. “I missed you, you stupid human.”

“I missed you too,” he said warmly, the feathers fading and turning back into arms, before he yelped. “Ah, watch the horns!”

That was when Rayla noticed something was off. Her horn had indeed grazed his nose, and she had her face pressed into his neck, and the chest and arms around her were a lot more solid than she remembered… 

She backed up, and her eyes widened. Mage training had had quite the effect on him. To start, he’d hit a growth spurt. They’d been eye-to-eye when he left (her horns giving her a slight advantage on top of that), but now he was a few inches taller than her. But whatever, she’d seen his aunt, and apparently his mother had been tall as well, so she had figured that he’d end up taller than her once they were done with puberty. 

What she hadn’t expected was the changes in his physique.Below the waist, he was still fairly scrawny, although it was hard to tell with baggy pants he was wearing. From the waist up, he had gained quite a bit of muscle. His shoulders and chest were considerably broader, and while his arms weren’t the same kind of muscular as Ethari’s or Soren’s (men who spent their days swinging heavy metal objects around), there was lean definition there, similar to Ibis. 

Callum beamed at her, and stepped away from her embrace, digging into his bag. “I have something to show you, one sec.” With a flourish, he pulled an object from his satchel, and flipped open an impressively made staff, topped with a small blue primal stone. He posed, staff extended in one arm and the other hand on his hip, his gaze skyward, trying to look heroic and cool. He made a small aspiro rune and blew out the side of his mouth, causing his scarf to flap majestically in the breeze before giving her a grin. Still a major dork, then. An _incredibly cut_ major dork.

Rayla swallowed, and tried to say something intelligent, only managing a flustered “um.” 

Callum glanced over at her, his smile fading.“Is… something wrong?” 

At his hurt puppy expression, Rayla felt the heat rise in her face. He was so damnably attractive, and so clearly happy to see her after all this time, and here she was, her tongue tied in knots because he’d gotten a little beefier.  
  
She stammered a bit, and then resorted to giving his bicep a squeeze.

He looked down at her hand, which trailed over to his chest, and understanding dawned on him. “Oh,” Callum said with a chuckle, “turns out flying everywhere is like doing push-ups for hours.” He smiled slyly, and flexed an arm. “You approve?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, running her finger down his arm, following the line of the runes. She was wondering what he looked like under the red tunic - elven made, since they’d been on the other side of the continent, of course, but still in Katolis red and gold. 

Callum tipped her chin up towards him, green meeting lavender, and his mouth quirked into a smile. And Rayla melted in his arms, diving forward and letting her mouth do what she’d spent all the days between dreaming of doing. She could have spent forever in that kiss, freewheeling through the sky that was him, but it wasn’t to be.

Another pair of strong arms wrapped around the two. “This is nice,” said Soren, hugging them both from behind Callum, smirking like the devil himself and leaning on the prince. A few more inches still hadn’t put Callum taller than Soren, much to Callum’s annoyance. 

“Hi, Soren,” he said flatly. “Your timing is terrible.”

Soren pulled away, beaming. “Uh, my timing is great, thank you. I was waiting just behind that rock for the right moment!”

“That’s weird,” said Rayla, folding her arms. 

“Whatever,” Soren sneered, and then spun Callum around to face him. “Time for a real hug!” He grabbed Callum, and squeezed hard, lifting him off the ground a little in a tight bear hug. Ever since that day before the battle, Soren had gotten it into his head that macho bro hugs was a thing he and Callum did, and a year apart wasn’t going to change that. Callum wheezed, frantically tapping Soren’s arm to let him go. 

Finally, he did. “Wow,” said Soren, eyeing Callum up and down. “If I had known all it took to get you to work out was to make it about nerdy magic stuff, I’d have made Claudia give you that primal stone years ago.” He grinned, and dropped to the ground into a plank, and looked up at Callum. “So let’s do this!”

Callum and Rayla exchanged confused glances. “Uh… do what?”

“Push-up contest! I want to see how many you can do now!”

“Soren, I just flew here from Cloudvale. My arms are tired.”

“Oh, so you’re still too puny to do push-ups with your good buddy Soren?” He smirked at Callum, raising an eyebrow. The taunt was obvious bait, which Callum took like a hungry fish. Glaring at Soren, he lowered himself into the ready position. At this, Soren beamed. “Hey Rayla, count us off!”

“Count yourself off,” she said, her voice coming from lower down than expected.

The two boys looked over to see that she had also lowered herself into a ready position, planking effortlessly. “What?” she said at their befuddled looks. “You two really thought I was gonna sit here and let a couple of humans show me up?”

I’ll count,” said Callum with annoyance. He looked at Soren and then Rayla, who both nodded, and with a sigh, he counted. “One… two….”

He stopped looking to see what the others were doing after ten, and after 25, he felt a sudden weight on his back. Specifically, around 200 pounds of armored person, sitting on him. “Soren, why are you sitting on me?” 

His arms were shaking now, but with a small note of pride he did consider that he was managing to hold Soren and himself up. 

“Well, I was impressed that you got to 25 without breaking a sweat. And then I thought… payback time.” He shifted, bringing his legs up to sit cross-legged on Callum’s back. “I think you were on 26?”

Callum managed 26 and 27, before Soren roped Rayla into participating as well, and Callum collapsed on 28. At that, the competitive tension broke, and the three of them lay in a heap on top of the Storm Spire, laughing. 

Later that night, Soren found several dozen moon moths in his bed. Moon moths that _someone_ who could _ **fly**_ had probably flown a little ways west to gather. The note on his pillow said “ _Payback_.”

Well, if Callum wanted to engage in a prank war, then it was _on_. 


End file.
